Tourniquet
by theytalktome
Summary: Christian had cats and an empty bag, he has no desire to look up at the sky, because that was something that dreamers did. (Second-Person Narrative challenge.)


There was this feeling that just felt like purgatory. Waiting was a boring feeling, but this was deeper, waiting didn't fully encompass the emotion of being blank. Waiting to get back to the hotel, to your own private room, lined by thin walls and just floating in a white blank space of limbo when you were really just locking up the door that closed all too slow on the spring and when you fell into the bed you felt as if you just kept on falling. A sigh could hardly let everything out that you had been keeping in. If you stepped into the shower you would have never gotten out, engulfed by steam and water and just standing until you ended up sitting, and you wouldn't get up again if you had any say in it. You could rot to death in there, broil yourself in the heat that wouldn't wash away any of your emotions.

Everything was wrong. Nothing seemed right anymore. It wasn't like anything was particularly wrong, really. It was not like you weren't good - it's just that you used to be great instead of just "good," and around here "good" did not get you a passing glance. You had to be great all of the time - hell, you had to be better than great! The feeling of desperation will set in when you try to achieve that greatness, but you're still stuck at "good" and suddenly, that feels like bad, and it feels as if everyone is looking at you; you're completely blinded by it and suddenly you are a shitty person. You're slowly giving up now that you've gone from great to just "good" or "okay" or even "average." Average was what happened when you began to settle into the fact that you were - that you are not great anymore. You're no longer going to be legendary, and that just means every passing moment of silence means that you are going to be forgotten even though you are screaming for another chance, and they come, every chance you're damn well begging for is coming right to you, the idea of chance is controlling you, your mind, you would do anything for that one chance to be successful, but it keeps turning on you, and eventually people are not going to hear you anymore, no matter how loud you're screaming; because you are becoming nothing. Forgotten.

Even your friends… they can see it, and you don't want to let them in. You can't let them see that you know you have lost it, but if you let them believe that you still think that you are remarkable you could end up making one wrong move in front of all of them and confirm what they already know. You can no longer put on a show.

Friends are supposed to be those people that you turn to; but you can't when you are sad all of the time. You can't go crying to them because that makes you a needy, pathetic attention seeker, and at your age you are a grown adult who can handle themselves properly - but you can't. Everyone is concerned about their own careers, and that is not a bad thing. You are a stepping stone for everyone younger, smarter and those who want it more than you do, simply because you've had it before, and you just really want to have it again. There is a strong possibility of the fact that what you are trying to reach is the very last time you will ever have it. That frightens you, more than the question of how in the hell you are going to fix yourself when you feel like a hopeless piece of shit. You would love to have someone there to hold you and tell you everything is going to be okay… but a couple of cats are not going to give you that feeling, so you just get more of them for companionship, and cats are jerks anyway, so they don't really give you anything in return anyway. Your best friend has a dog - a big one at that, you don't really mind the small ones, and although it's friendly, you're certain you still prefer your creepy little cat that you rescued.

You need to be strong for yourself, because no one else is there for you. Trying to gain a championship belt is not doing it for you anymore. You are beginning to wonder if gaining it will change your current emotional state, because there is still no one there for you. A few friends are not making the impact you felt that it would. Ultimately, you are alone.

Eventually, you're going to shut the shower water off, but you still can't get up, so you stay there like the pathetic person you are. You sit in the shower. You eventually lay there, and eventually you wake up in the morning, damp, smelling like bar soap and the Paul Mitchell shampoo you didn't realize you were laying on top of, and you have to shower again and haul yourself out of the bathroom because, God, what the fuck time is it? Your flight home has probably already left.

Next Thursday there is a flight leaving from Tampa, where you just gave some useless seminar to some rookies, to - well, you're not concentrated enough to know where because you're somewhere into believing you're a woman with menopause because of the drastic hot to cold feeling you get going in and out of your rental, and when you sit down at the terminal when you figure it out finally, you realize you're sweating and it's definitely would be a woman's issue, except the person dealing with it is a man heading towards middle-age but not yet in crisis. You finally realize you're tired of this floating purgatory thing, whatever that whole deal was that you were about to face on entering your hotel room a few states away. You're tired of waiting for planes. You're tired of waiting for something to happen. You're not happy anywhere you go, and the feeling is overwhelmingly crushing. You can't live like this, it's a simple fact, and you can wrap yourself around that as quickly as you would like to wrap your car around a pole - but you can't do that, because it's ridiculous… it's also stupid, so you just get on the damned plane.

You drag your luggage behind you.

You sleep on the plane, but you do not dream.

Nudged awake, you carry your things and allow yourself the help from a cute flight attendant; young, full of life and a little too passionate about her job. She looks like perfect, and you really, really like that. When your eyes meet, she looks away and blushes, but you simply do nothing, because you'll never see her again; but maybe you could think about the way you're distracted by the color of her lips, arched eyebrows and mascara lined eyes to notice the scarf around her neck or if she was wearing earrings.

When Friday rolls around, you find yourself in the ring fighting for someone - they don't know it, and you don't realize why, but God, it helps, it feels good and you've been on this awful losing streak so long you're too far into your own damn thoughts to realize a referee is holding your arm up and you're not sure if you're injured and you would look like a moron to say "Hey, did I just get hurt?" People are yelling at you - in a good way!

Walking to the back feels right, perfect, wonderful - up until you make it into a bad thing when your friend is patting you on the back like you're some kind of dog who did something right and this was your god damned treat. You jump at everyone's compliments, reply with curt "Thank you"'s with no emotion. Every word makes you think "What is that supposed to mean!?" So you get jumpy, upset, and now everyone just think that you are a arrogant bitch.

You eat shit the next week and the pattern has resumed. The ref is helping you off the mat and when you shove them away you guess he thinks you're a bitch now too. Packing your bags in your "best friends"'s locker room feels like you're getting grilled by the police under some lamp that was far too hot, inspected and watched and you snap at him when your eyes meet, and he leaves, instead of kicking you out. You're far more annoyed when the obviously would-be-Rockstar's boyfriend comes back and gathers his things for him.

You're polite knowing you would be more apologetic had the actual future Hall of Fame-r came back, but you'd be apologetic hoping that they would apologize for …. Looking … at… you. Oh, you're losing your mind now, so that …about makes sense.

You wonder if these people are your friends anymore.

You have nothing to show for being in the same locker room as Chris Jericho. You know you won't have it, but you're still hoping - because you won the other night at the last show and that meant something! Something… You still have a …goal. Like every other damn person. Though he has gone, you're now pretty certain sharing a locker room with Edge was something to chalk up to the list of things that would now embarrass you and make you go running home to your …. Cats.

The week after you caused unnecessary drama, your friend is gone on a press weekend for his music career, and you feel like laughing when you're showing your face around at Monday Night Raw. The private locker room is because no one wants to be near you again. Your poor attitude and losing streak was contagious - because you've just lost again to Alberto Del Rio and started that whole streak up again to the elegant man banging someone that looked as if they belonged in the gutter eating stolen cheese from some French restaurant. Your hurling insults in your mind, and now you realize you've been talking to yourself for …weeks. Maybe hunting down Orton and begging him for a few of those pills he was taking again in pseudo-secrecy, because he had been caught more than once, would shut yourself up. You deserve them more than he does - because you have more to deal with. Now you're ignorant and selfish…. And you realize it. Now you're just like your "friends" who are already well aware.

You get up and stare in the mirror, telling yourself to stop talking to …yourself, "Christian, come on…" and when you say it out loud, it is so, so much worse.

"I'm falling apart…" It's the first time you haven't talked to yourself like you're The Rock.

He chalks it up to being tired - and he was, that it's self was not a lie. He was tired of staying strong, and not crying even if he really wants to, but he can't, mainly because he is a man.. That ideal still holds value, but he isn't too sure anymore. How are you supposed to fix yourself and then fix everyone's opinion about you?

He had worked hard, and that very same hard-work was now eating him whole. On the consideration of thinking that he had over reacted, and his "friends" did not need to be referred to by making little quote marks with his index and middle fingers, what would they have thought? What would they even say when he was all set and ready to accept this hell of minimal achievement and give up? It seemed as if the only thing preventing such a thing was that he had no family to return home to - no consolation prize.

He's still strong and fighting. Which, in it's self, is a worthless effort he has come to realize. Chris has someone to go home to, and a second successful career in music. Now he was realizing that staying was the thing that was unfulfilling, although not wanting to step in the ring to face another loss, he wished for a little more than the belt at this stage in life.

He has stopped talking to himself long enough to splash his face with some cold water and examine his face in the mirror again. A heavy weight was that of the big 4-0 approaching, now he was staring at every mark of age on his face as if it was a lesser version of the Grand Canyon gorge. There was no way he had anything else left to pick on as far as self-esteem was concerned. Puffy eyes, for starters, with optics dulled, muted in color, some areas he would have liked to immediately respond to with plastic surgery, however, a shave when he got back to the hotel would have to be the first thing to address. He felt as if he could drown all this in alcohol if the idea didn't make him sick. He was at least determined enough not to be that type of person.

He exits, standing just outside the bathroom doorway and stares at his displayed belongings, a good, hard look at nothing until he felt compelled to move his feet again and sit, recollecting his things back into the black suitcase laying by his feet now. He just wanted something... Anything to happen. He was so derailed that he had overlooked the fact that everyone had gone back to the hotel and eventually he does the same.

He toes off his white slip on sneakers beside the bed when he gets to his temporary home, dumping his bags beside them and lingers beside the bed for longer than he intended. He stares, without meaning, at the television screen, black and offering no entertainment, just

silence. When he rises up to his feet, he can't even acknowledge that his own body is on some type of autopilot. He moves, and he sees, but he can not assess. Long fingers curl around the fabric of the curtains, pushing them to each side on their rods. He steps between them and opens up the window, hand pressed against the screen. For once, he wants it to be easy… to be straightforward and just uncomplicated and effortless.

He wants to be saved. Looking out at the city, the cars flying by in steady streams of tail lights on the highway and the lights up in the office buildings of people with "real jobs." In that, something just tells him that the ground is warm and welcoming.

God knows that he would love to jump.

End everything.

Christian Cage just wants to be saved.

This nothing. There was no future, after all. What could he gain after hitting 40 that refused to happen before it? Another divorce? Or worse… Nothing?

Superstars were getting younger, and much bigger. The seemingly insignificant reign of per-say,

petite stars was over - not that he was small at 6'1, he just hadn't the youth

or the bodybuilder muscle. His two best friends had settled down, had left the

business due to force and also their own accord, Chris had found much better things

to do with his time, and Edge - or, Adam now, was delighted to make an

occasional appearance and move into the acting world. Christian was angry out of

jealousy that he was at a loss for life while both of his closest friends had their own set of

ventures and significant others to share their lives with.

Christian had cats and an empty bag.

He wanted all that was floating in his head.

The blonde has no desire to look up at the sky, that was something dreamers did. He stares at the ground, instead of a sky covered in stars, and he can make out the lines in the sidewalk from the seventh floor as easily as the unattractive ones plaguing his face.

He was simply complacent, and admittedly, the only wish he had now was for

enough mental strength to punch the screen out and jump.

There's a figure behind a tree that he casually regards when it catches his

attention away from self-pity, his eyes however just can't stop straying over to

the body illuminated by some Christmas lights the hotel had decided was a great all-year decoration. The person does not move, but suddenly turns and looks directly up - staring Christian.

The direct gaze sends him stumbling back from the window and he moves defensively even though seven floors separate them from interacting.

Getting caught staring from such a distance was unusual, however, the fright

it's self had come from the plain fact that this person had been wearing some

type of white mask over their face, too far and too instant to make out any other

details.

He moves to the other side of the room, to the corner where the curtains are all bunched up and gently wiggles his way behind them, or in front of them as he peers out the window in secrecy before blinking his eyes a few times and looking again in a more direct manner.

The person was gone.

He rubs his eyes and takes a deep breath, releasing it slowly with his head hanging. Stress was getting to him. He decides to just close the window and cover it back up before he had any other things magically appear before his eyes. Randy Orton heard voices… Christian Cage saw things. A whole locker room full of psychopaths.

Innocently enough, the blonde moves, laying up against the wall, trying to de-stress. A heavy sigh encompassed all of his emotions into an audible sound of distress. He squeezes his eyes shut, heels of his palms pressed hard into his sea-green eyes and his head against the grain of the wall.

His breath hitches in his throat and breathing no longer seemed like an option. Nothing felt natural anymore. It had to be the depression, the uncertainty and anguish - he was certain of it.

The feeling of something being wrong became the feeling of dread. It was a horrifying feeling that never before had he experienced.

It made no sense, yet he was clawing at his own neck, trying to remove hands that were not even there. It was like waiting for some hotel serial-killer to burst in, and in that, he would have realized that he really wanted to live... It was far from the case.

Maybe it was the coolness of the wall he felt forced up against, but he couldn't find the ability to just move away from it, the chill settled in his shoulder blades and fear crept into Christian's spine.

It's in this moment that he realizes not only is he not moving, but he can not breathe and

the hairs on his neck and arms are standing up.

He couldn't move, God, he couldn't move.


End file.
